Cambridge Business Association
Public Benefit, Incorporated
Article

Public Benefit, Incorporated

Lenore Palladino
Boston Review, 2018
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Editorial Rating

8

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Recommendation

The widely held notion that public companies should make decisions based exclusively on shareholder interests is absurd, according to economist Lenore Palladino. She argues that corporations exist by “public permission” and that employees, customers and citizens deserve a say in corporate governance. Her thought-provoking essay does a good job of putting forward these ideas, though she offers few details on how some companies put them into practice. Nonetheless, getAbstract recommends this astute article to CEOs and corporate executives.

Summary

A pervasive belief about corporate governance is that its only goal is to increase shareholders’ wealth. All too often, companies streamline, outsource and automate to benefit investors while ignoring the effects on workers and customers. Yet no US law mandates that shareholder interests come before those of the public. Rather, legislation creates corporations and grants them “privileges – not rights.” Citizens, through government, make corporations possible, so people should require companies to pursue public objectives, such as bearing the social costs of doing business and benefiting a...

About the Author

Lenore Palladino is a senior economist at the Roosevelt Institute

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